After a week in the ole fermenter, my home-brew is now ready to be bottled. This step is crucial in the home-brew process. During this step, the beer gets primed (sugar is added to allow carbonation). After this step, I’ll begin the waiting game.

I kept my fermenter in my basement under a blanket to prevent unnecessary light from affecting the fermentation process. The beer kit recommended a fermentation temperature of 21-27 degrees Celsius (70-80 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to avoid a overly gassy brew. Fermentation can be sped up by keeping the temperature towards the ceiling of that range. My temperature was somewhere in the middle, so I waited out my full week before bottling.

One of the fancier bells and whistles of my Coopers kit was the hydrometer. I had not used one of these in my previous batches of beer and was excited to try it out. I had a Final Gravity of 1.010. For the home-brewing math geek, the formula to find the Alcohol By Volume of your beer is Original Gravity (hydrometer measurement of the wort before the yeast is added) minus Final Gravity (hydrometer reading after a week of fermentation) divided by 7.46 plus .5. So my beer is somewhere around 4.7% ABV.